Computerized wagering games have largely replaced traditional mechanical wagering game machines such as slot machines, and are rapidly being adopted to implement computerized versions of games that are traditionally played live such as poker and blackjack. These computerized games provide many benefits to the game owner and to the gambler, including greater reliability than can be achieved with a mechanical game or human dealer, more variety, sound, and animation in presentation of a game, and a lower overall cost of production and management.
The elements of computerized wagering game systems are in many ways the same as the elements in the mechanical and table game counterparts in that they must be fair, they must provide sufficient feedback to the game player to make the game fun to play, and they must meet a variety of gaming regulations to ensure that both the machine owner and gamer are honest and fairly treated in implementing the game. Further, they must provide a gaming experience that is at least as attractive as the older mechanical gaming machine experience to the gamer, to ensure success in a competitive gaming market.
Computerized wagering games do not rely on the dealer or other game players to facilitate game play and to provide an entertaining game playing environment, but rely upon the presentation of the game and environment generated by the wagering game machine itself. Incorporation of audio, video, and mechanical features into wagering game systems enhance the environment presented are therefore important elements in the attractiveness and commercial success of a computerized wagering game system. A variety of complex graphics and video capabilities are also often provided via one or more specialized graphics processors, including the ability to decode and render full motion video, and to render complex three-dimensional graphics. Further, the variety of features available to wagering game players in some computerized wagering game systems use a variety of user interfaces.
Users typically no longer use a single pull-arm or a simple button to interact with a wagering game machine, but use touchscreen video prompts and other sophisticated interfaces to provide other types of input to a wagering game machine. Touchscreens enable user selection from among a variety of customizable input types, as the displayed image behind the touchscreen can be changed depending on the desired user input, such as selecting a game to play, selecting cards to keep in a card game, or selecting a path in proceeding through a theme-based game.
But, some wagering game systems benefit from a greater variety of user inputs or user inputs offering further diversity in input type, such as portable wagering game systems that might have a relatively small touchscreen display space. It is therefore desirable to provide user interfaces having a variety of input capabilities.